There is no sound or movement, no indication that anyone in the tent has heard a noise. He goes over to the sledge and gets the deerskin traces. One by one, he wakes the dogs and harnesses them. He crawls back inside the snow house, takes off the dead men’s boots, britches, and mittens and stuffs them inside one of the sleeping bags. When he comes out again, he sees Cavendish standing over by the sledge. He raises his right hand and walks across to him.
“I hant whistled you yet,” Drax tells him.
“I int waiting for no fucking whistle either.”
Drax looks at him and nods.
“The case is altered. I have to show you something now.”
“Show me what?”
Drax puts the sleeping bag down on the snow, tugs it open, and points inside.
“Lookee in there,” he says. “Tell me what you see.”
Cavendish pauses, shakes his head, then moves forwards and leans down to take a look in the bag. Drax steps off to the side, grabs him by the forelock, yanks his chin upwards, and cuts through his windpipe with one single slice of the blubber knife. Cavendish, rendered suddenly mute, grabs his gaping neck with both hands as if hoping to reseal the opening and drops onto his knees in the snow. He shuffles forwards for a few moments, like a crippled penitent, jerking, rasping, and gushing blood from his impossible wound, then topples, shudders like a hooked fish drowning in air, and stops moving completely. Drax turns him over and starts going through the pockets of Brownlee’s greatcoat.
“That wont my idea, Michael,” he tells him. “That one were yours alone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It is still half-dark when they find the first mate’s corpse spread-eagled on the snow, frozen hard, throat gashed, bibbed and spewed over with blood. They assume the Yaks have murdered him until they realize that the Yaks are both dead themselves, and it is only then that they notice Drax is missing. When they figure what has happened, they stand there stunned, unable to parse the world implied by such events. They look down at Cavendish, dead and rime-covered, as if expecting him to speak to them again, to offer up one last unbelievable opinion on his own demise.
Within the hour, under Otto’s direction, they bury Cavendish in a shallow, scooped-out trench at the tip of the headland and cover the body over with slabs of rock and stones prized from the cliff face. Since the Yaks are heathens and their funerary rites, in consequence, obscure, they leave their bodies as they found them, only blocking the snow house entrance and collapsing the roof and walls on top to form a crude and temporary mausoleum. Once this work is complete, Otto calls the men into the tent and suggests they pray together for God’s mercy in their present distress and for the souls of the recently deceased. A few kneel and bow their heads; others unfurl themselves lengthways or crouch cross-legged, yawning and picking at themselves like apes. Otto closes his eyes and tilts his chin upwards.
“Oh dearest Lord,” he starts, “help us to understand Your purposes and Your mercy. Preserve us now from the grave sin of despair.”
As he speaks, a jury-rigged blubber lamp is still burning at the center of the tent. A curlicue of black smoke twists up from it and meltwater drips off the canvas where the heat has risen and touched the half-inch inner layer of ice.
“Let us not give in to evil,” Otto continues, “but give us faith in the workings of Your Providence even in this time of our confusion and suffering. Let us remember that Your Love created this world and Your Love sustains it still at every moment.”
Webster the blacksmith coughs loudly, then leans his head out of the tent and spits into the snow. McKendrick, who is on his knees and trembling, begins to weep softly and so does the cook and one of the Shetlanders. Sumner, who is light-headed and nauseous from a combination of fear and hunger, tries to concentrate on the question of the manacles. Since Drax could not have committed three murders with his wrists and ankles chained together, he must have freed himself beforehand, he thinks, but how could he do so? Did the Yaks assist him? Did Cavendish? Why would anyone wish to help a man like Drax escape? And if they did help him, why did they all three end up dead?
“Guard and direct the spirits of those who have just died,” Otto says. “Protect them as they travel through the other realms of time and space. And help us remember always that we are a part of Your greater mystery, that You are never absent, that even if we fail to see You, or if we mistake Your presence for some other lesser thing, You are still there with us. Thank you, Lord, Amen.”
The amens come back to him in ragged, grumbling chorus. Otto opens his eyes and looks about as though surprised at where he finds himself. He suggests they sing a hymn, but before he can begin, he is interrupted by Webster. The blacksmith appears angry. His dark eyes are filled with a bitter eagerness.
“We’ve had the Devil hisself living here amongst us,” he shouts out. “The Devil hisself. I seen his footprints out there in the snow just now. The cloven hoof, the mark of Satan. I seen it clear as day.”
“I seen it too,” McKendrick says. “Like the tracks of a pig or a goat, ’cept there int no pigs or goats alive in this forsaken hole.”
“There were no such tracks,” Otto says, “no marks at all except those left by the dogs. The only Devil is the one inside ourselves. Evil is a turning away from good.”
Webster shakes his head.
“That Drax is Satan taken on a fleshly form,” he says. “He int human like you or me, he just looks that way when he chooses to.”
“Henry Drax is not the Devil,” Otto tells him patiently, as if correcting an elementary confusion. “He’s a tormented spirit. I’ve seen him in my dreams. I’ve spoken to him there many times.”
“There’s three dead men outside I’d weigh against your fucking dreaming,” Webster says.
“Whatever he may be, he’s gone now,” Otto says.
“Aye, but where is he gone to? And who says he won’t be coming back betimes?”
Otto shakes his head.
“He won’t come back here. Why would he?”
“The Devil does as he wishes to,” Webster says. “He pleases hisself, I’d say.”
The possibility of Drax’s return sets the men into a hubbub. Otto tries to quiet them, but they ignore him.
“We have to leave this place,” Webster tells them all. “We can find the Yaks’ camp and they can take us down to the Yankee whaling station on Blacklead Island. We’ll be safe there.”
“You don’t know where the Yak camp is or how far distant,” Otto says.
“It’s away off to the west somewhere. If we follow the shoreline, we’ll find it soon enough.”
“You’ll die before you get there. You’ll freeze to death for sure.”
“I’ve had about my fill of taking other men’s advisements,” Webster says. “We followed orders since we left from Hull, and it’s that has brought us to this sorry fucking pass.”
Otto looks to Sumner, and Sumner thinks a moment.
“You’ll have no tent,” he tells him, “no furs or skins to wear. There are no roads or tracks of any kind here, no landmarks any of us recognize, so even if the camp is close you may not find it ever. You might survive one night out in the open air, but for sure you won’t survive two.”
“Those as want to stay in this accursed place can stay,” Webster says. “But I int staying an hour longer here.”
He stands up and starts gathering together his possessions. His face is stiff and pale, his movements jerky and enraged. The others sit and watch him, then McKendrick, the cook, and the Shetlander stand up too. McKendrick’s sunken cheeks are still wet with tears. He has open sores on his face and neck from his time down in the hold. The cook is shivering like an animal in distress. Otto tells them to delay, to eat dinner in the tent tonight and then leave at first light if they must, but they take no notice. When he presses them, they raise their fists against him and Webster pledges he will knock down any man who seeks to stand in their way.